Flight


Escaping is moving forward

Steve Neill’s SNG Studio

My adventure back into Free Flight model aircraft has been a joyesh one to say the least. With all the absolute insanity of human beings world wide going on and breakneck speed it’s great to escape into a cozy quiet shop in the backroom with airplanes hanging from the ceiling to find that Zen while quietly building a little engineering gem that will fly free in the beautiful skies.

The entire time I’m building I’m imagining the flight in the sky and the fun and camaraderie and friendships of the people I fly with. While everything else around you has gone completely mad we have our own little world of sanity. Suddenly the world makes sense again.

Already I have built a few new aircraft. But presently I’m building a Golden Age Reproductions Fokker D-7. With these old kits from the 30’s you have to cut every part out by hand from the printed balsa supplied in the kit. A very enjoyable process indeed.

I also just built for indoor flying a Easy Built Models Freshman Embryo. Old design but an updated to a laser cut kit. It builds well with its laser cut parts and I should fly it this week at the Stonehurst Recreation Center in Sun Valley. These fly super slow and for very long flights landing themselves on the floor.

Keeping to planes I can fly indoors for the winter. I’m building a Volare Products out of production kit of a Jonathan Nunez Yak 3. A beautifully designed kit by George Bredehoft that literally melts together with his fine laser cutting and precise engineering. Your kits will be missed George.

And in the mail from the UK from the Vintage Model company a Fouga glider. This glider was an early design for a jet powered full sized glider.

Originally designed back in the day as a model for a Jetex rocket motor, today we have tiny EDF(electric ducted fan) units that act as jet engines. I ordered one and will use this in the project to propel this 30 inch span glider in free flight. Wonderful project I have always wanted to do since I first set eyes on the Fouga.

Lastly I was looking through my stash and came across this little marvel of an engineering feat. A Gasparin CO2 motor I bought from Kit Kraft before they were closed years ago. This little motor will fly and small free flight model well.

I looked for plans for a model that would suit it well and I arrived on the Demoiselle.

First built and flown in 1909 as a full sized aircraft, I could see that it would feature this little motor well without hiding it inside a more modern airplane’s cowl. Plus it is a historical aircraft that flies slow and easy.

I have more ideas ahead of course. There’s no end to it and that’s the joy of any hobby. When you finish one project there’s always a next.

I truly believe if more people had hobbies of passion we would have a better world. People would stop fighting and band together in the name of fun and joy. Not that other insanity we see everyday in the news. Plus! People who play with and have hobbies live longer. It’a win-win!

I’m 74 now and I fly with people that range from their 30’s to their 90’s. We are all little kids embracing our inner child. The inner child that will keep you young and your eyes on the skies always.

Getting back to Astrophotography

I use to years ago with film cameras make long term exposures through my C-8 clock drive 2000mm f.5 telescope. It’s a bit different with a digital camera but in so many ways better.

I​’m getting ready to start some astrophotography with our Celestron telescope. I’m up every morning at 5:30 and the sky is very dark and clear. So I have been practicing exposures on our Sony A7.

This morning I got this exposure of my favorite constellation Orion. On the tripod a 5 second exposure. Next up we go to a longer exposure on a 1000 millimeter lens that track​s the Orion Nebula​ during the exposure.

To really see the proper full image click on their thumnail. It will enlarge and you can zoom in on it. You have to right click on the image and open in “New Tab”. The thumnail is very poor.

Good things from the printer and this sculpter

I have been sculpting in Blender 3D and working out the details of getting good prints from my Elegoo Jupiter SE resin printer. Now that I’m getting consistent prints of the cats out of the bag, I have big plans for the future and the availability of these sculpts and painted and signed forms in a future store.

These are about 6 inches tall. I will offer large 9-10 inch full figures and busts.

No more heavy clay and molds. No more pouring rubber and lifting 50 lbs molds. No more mess. And the best part of all these will never rot away like rubber and will last forever.

Drawing Pad for Christmas

​My favorite Christmas gift from Mary has to be this drawing pad that for me is a real game changer as it allows me to hand illustrate without actual canvas, paper, pencils, brushes and so on to produce art at a faster pace without restrictions.

Yet it is very much the same thing as I have always done with those listed materials. You still have brushes and pencils but they are all digital. It is not AI which I do not like, it’s my art drawn or painted by hand.

I did this charcoal drawing of a grey in just a few minutes and this water color which was my first attempt with the pad I think turned out well.

I still need to finish this water color one but you’ll get the idea.

The pad also allows me to create animations of my art by hand without AI that is truly genuine. It also will enable me to do illustrations on the fly for articles, writings, secret stories and shows. These are characters I’m working on for my first animated short.

With this pod I draw directly on the screen like paper or canvas so it’s very natural.

Can’t wait to do more.

The Breath in the Trees

A short film I made using Unreal Engine, Blender and my personal CGI animation and wire frame mesh creating skills. This is not AI.

I don’t approve of AI at all. I have myself been accused of being AI because and I quote, “no one my age would have such tech and know how to use it” when in fact it was our generation that created all this tech from back engineered sources we are all familiar with.
Enjoy

You have choose life

Arrival the film you‘ve never seen

Mary and I watched the film, “Arrival” for the second time since we first watched it in 2016. It would be the next year we started “But Something is There.” 
Although I remembered the film I had only seen it once. Since then my experience with the Visitors has evolved and have I. In watching the film again I felt the presence of something in the film quite real. Not just a movie. As though the visitors were channeling through the author of the book, 

Ted Chiang.

Whether he is aware of it or not doesn’t matter. As I write stories myself I really don’t understand where they are coming from. They seemed channeled at times and maybe they are. They are always stories of hope.

The bottom line with “Arrival” is there is a message and the gift the Heptapods offered to the human race which changes everything about who we thought we were.

I was talking to a famous author friend of mine last night and he agreed. What happens in this film is going to happen to us. It’s a question of when not if.

Who we are presently is not sustainable. We have no hope or future if we don’t evolve. 

I have chosen life.

Please watch this film. In my opinion it is the most significant film ever made about contact with non-human intelligence and the nature of the humanity.

The two sentences of symbols I posted are very important. Those of you that know what the symbols will know their meaning.

The first one is “ You have choose Life”

The second is “ There is no linear time”